The Treasure Chest Read online

  A Poor Reward

  When in the last Prussian war* the French came to Berlin where the King of Prussia resides, a great deal of the royal property as well as other people’s was taken and carried off or sold. For war brings nothing, it only takes. Much was claimed as booty, however well it was hidden they found it, but not everything. A large store of royal building timber remained undiscovered and untouched for some time. But eventually a rascal among the king’s own subjects thought, there’s a fair penny to be made here, and with a smirk and a wink he went to tell the French commandant what a lovely stack of oak and pine logs was still at such and such a place, and it was worth a few thousand guilders. But the French commandant paid him badly for this betrayal and said, ‘Just you leave those fine logs where they are! There’s no call to deprive the enemy of his most basic needs. For when your king returns he will need timber for new gallows for trusty subjects like you!’

  Your Family Friend can only applaud that, and he would make a present of a few logs from his own coppice if they were needed.

  He Speaks German!

  As everyone knows there are many in the French Army who were born German, but they don’t always let on in the field or in their quarters. That can be a real problem for a householder who knows no French and takes the soldier who has been quartered on him to be a regular Frenchman. But a citizen of Salzwedel who had an Alsatian lodged on him in the last war* chanced upon a quick way of getting to the bottom of it. The Alsatian’s parley was all foutre diables, with sword in hand he was forever demanding something, now this, now that, and his host couldn’t tell what it was he wanted. He would gladly have given him whatever it was if that had been possible. In desperation he ran next door to his cousin who knew a bit of French and asked for his help. The cousin said, ‘He’ll be from the Dauphiné, I’ll sort it out all right!’ But not at all! Things were bad before, now they were worse still. The Alsatian made demands the good man couldn’t satisfy, until in the end he lost his temper and said, ‘He’s the biggest damned rascal the quarters’ clerk ever sent to plague me!’ But hardly had he uttered these rash words than he was given a terrible box on the ears by this would-be regular Frenchman. At that the neighbour said, ‘Cousin, there’s no need to be scared of him any more, he speaks German!’

  Suvorov

  We must be able to exercise control over ourselves, for without that no one can act properly and be worthy of respect. And once we have recognized what is right we must do it, not just once but always!

  The Russian general Suvorov, who is well known to the Turks and Poles, the Italians and the Swiss,* was a hard and strict ruler of men. But his greatest quality was this, that he obeyed his own orders as if he was someone else and not Suvorov himself, and very often his adjutants had to order him in his own name to do this or that, and then he obeyed them at once. On one occasion he was carried away by anger at a soldier who was guilty of some misdemeanour or other and straight away set about giving him a thrashing. An adjutant plucked up his courage, thinking he could do the general and the soldier a good turn, hurried over and said: ‘General Suvorov has ordered that no one is to lose his temper!’ Suvorov stopped at once and said: ‘The general’s orders must be obeyed!’

  The Stranger in Memel

  Fact is often weirder than fiction. A stranger learnt that when some years ago he came by ship from the West Indies to the Baltic coast. At that time the Russian Emperor was visiting the King of Prussia. Both their majesties were standing together on the shore in ordinary clothes, without entourage, arm in arm like two very good friends. That’s not something you see every day of the week! The new arrival didn’t expect anything like that, and he went up to them all unsuspecting, thinking they were two merchants or well-to-do men from the locality, and struck up a conversation with them, curious to know everything that had happened while he had been abroad. Eventually, as the two monarchs spoke very affably with him, he was able politely to ask one of them who he was. ‘I’m the King of Prussia.’ Our stranger found that a little strange. Yet it’s possible, he thought, and bowed respectfully to the King. And that was sensible. For when in doubt it is best to take the safest course and be polite in error rather than rude. Yet when the King continued, ‘This is His Majesty, the Russian Emperor,’ the good man thought a couple of wags were out to pull his leg and he said, ‘If you two want to make a fool of an honest fellow, try it on with someone else! I didn’t come back all the way from the West Indies to be made a fool of by you!’ The Emperor tried to say that he really was the Tsar. But the stranger wouldn’t listen to any more. ‘You’re a Russian clown more likely!’ he said. But later when he told his story in the Old Oak he was put right and he went back and humbly begged their pardon, and the generous rulers forgave him a natural mistake, and afterwards they thought it a great joke.

  An Odd Prescription

  There’s not usually anything very funny about taking a prescription to the chemist’s. But once many years ago it was funny. One day a man from a remote farm drew up his cart drawn by two oxen in front of the town apothecary’s and carefully unloaded a large pine door and carried it in. The apothecary raised his eyebrows and said, ‘What are you doing here, my friend, with your parlour door? The carpenter lives two houses along on the left!’ The man told him the doctor had come to his sick wife and wanted to prescribe medicine for her, but there was no pen, ink or paper in the house, only a piece of chalk. So the doctor wrote the prescription on the parlour door. So please, would the apothecary now kindly make up the potion for him?

  That’s how it happened, and let’s hope it did her good! Resourcefulness is called for in an emergency.

  The Barber’s Boy at Segringen

  You must not tempt God, but not people either. You see, last autumn a stranger came into the inn at Segringen, a soldier with a good growth of beard on him, and he looked rather odd and not to be trusted. Before ordering anything to eat or drink he said to the landlord, ‘Is there a barber in the village who can give me a shave?’ The landlord said there was and sent for him. The stranger told this barber, ‘Take off my beard, but be careful, I have a sensitive skin! I’ll pay you four thalers if you don’t cut my face. But if you cut me I’ll kill you! You wouldn’t be the first!’ The barber was scared, for the stranger’s scowl told him that he wasn’t pretending and his sharp dagger lay on the table, so he ran off and sent along the journeyman. The soldier repeated his order. When the journeyman heard the conditions he too ran off and sent along the apprentice. The apprentice was dazzled by the money and thought, ‘I’ll risk it! If I manage it and don’t cut him, for four thalers I can buy a new coat at the fair, and a lancet. If I don’t, I know what I’ll do!’ And so he shaved his customer. His customer sat very still, he didn’t know what mortal danger he was in, and the bold apprentice coolly drew the razor over his face and around his nose as if there was only threepence at stake or a dab of tinder or blotting-paper to staunch any cut he might make, rather than four thalers and his life, and he took off his beard nicely without cutting him or drawing blood, and when he had finished he thought: Thank God for that!

  The man got up, looked at himself in the mirror and dried his face, and then he gave the lad the four thalers and said to him, ‘Now tell me, young fellow, who gave you the courage to shave me when your master and the journeyman ran away? For if you’d cut me I would have killed you!’ The apprentice smiled, thanked him for the handsome payment and said, ‘Oh no, sir, you wouldn’t have killed me, for if you had twitched and I’d cut your face I would have been quicker than you, I’d have slit your throat and made my getaway!’ When the stranger heard that and thought of the danger he had been in he suddenly turned pale with fear and gave the lad another thaler, and since then he has never again told a barber, ‘If you cut me I’ll kill you!’

  A Curious Ghost Story

  Last autumn a gentleman was travelling through Schliengen, a nice little place. And as he was walking up the hill to spare the horses he told a man from Grenzach th
e following story of what had happened to him.

  Six months earlier this gentleman was on his way to Denmark, and late one evening he arrived in a village with a fine mansion on a hill outside, and he wanted to stay the night. But the innkeeper said he had no room, there was a hanging the next day and three hangmen were staying with him. So the gentleman replied, ‘Then I’ll ask up there in the big house. The owner, the governor or whoever he is, will take me in and find a spare bed for me.’ The innkeeper said, ‘There are plenty of fine beds with silk hangings up there all ready made up, and I’m in charge of the keys. But I wouldn’t advise you to go there! Three months ago the lord and the lady and the young master went away on a long journey, and since then the mansion house has been haunted by ghosts. The steward and the servants had to leave, and all the others who have been to the house never went back a second time.’ Our stranger smiled. For he was a plucky man who wasn’t afraid of ghosts, and he said, ‘I’ll risk it!’ Despite all the innkeeper’s objections he had to hand over the key, and after the traveller had put together what was needed to pay a visit on ghosts he went to the mansion with his servant who was travelling with him.

  Once inside he didn’t undress or get ready for bed, but waited to see what happened. He put two lights to burn on the table and a pair of loaded pistols next to them, and to pass away the time he picked up the Rhinelanders’ Family Friend, bound in gold paper, which was hanging by a red silk ribbon under the mirror in its

  frame on the wall, and looked at the nice pictures. For a long time nothing happened. But when midnight stirred in the church tower and the clock struck twelve, and a rainstorm was passing over the house and large drops were beating against the window, there were three loud knocks on the door and a ghastly apparition with black squinting eyes, a nose half a yard long, gnashing teeth, a beard like a goat and hair all over its body came into the room and said in a horrible growl: ‘I am the lord Mephistopheles. Welcome to my palace! Have you said your goodbyes to your wife and children?’ The visitor felt a cold shiver run up from his big toes over his back and up under his nightcap, and his poor servant was in a worse state still. But when this Mephistopheles came towards him, scowling dreadfully and stepping high as if he was crossing a floor of flames, the unfortunate gentleman thought: in God’s name, this is the test! And he stood up boldly and pointed

  his pistol at the monster and said, ‘Halt, or I’ll shoot!’ Not every ghost can be stopped like that, for even if you pull the trigger it doesn’t go off, or the bullet flies back and hits you instead of the target. But Mephistopheles raised his first finger in warning, turned slowly on his heels and strode away just as he had come. Now when our traveller saw that this devil had respect for gunpowder, he thought, ‘There’s no danger now!’, picked up a light in his free hand and followed the ghost cautiously along the passage; and his servant who was standing behind him ran for all he was worth out of this blessed place and down to the village, thinking he’d sooner spend the night with the hangmen than with spooks.

  But suddenly in the passage the ghost disappeared from under the eyes of its plucky pursuer just as if it had gone through the floor. And when the gentleman went on another few paces to see where it had gone, all at once there was no floor under his feet and he fell down through a hole towards a flaming fire, and he himself thought he was on the way to hell. But after dropping about ten feet he found himself lying unharmed on a heap of hay in a cellar. And six weird fellows were standing around the fire, that Mephistopheles with them. All sorts of strange implements were piled up around them, and two tables stood heaped with shining thalers, each one more lovely than the other.

  Now the stranger knew what was going on. For this was a secret band of forgers, all with blood running in their veins. They had taken advantage of the owner’s absence and set up their mint in his mansion, and some of them were probably servants of the house who knew their way about; and to make sure they were not disturbed and discovered they wailed like ghosts, and anyone who came to the house was so frightened he never came back to take a second look. Yet the plucky traveller now had cause to regret his lack of prudence in not listening to the innkeeper’s warnings. For he was pushed through a narrow opening into a small dark room and could hear them deciding his fate: ‘The best thing is to kill him!’ said one. But another said, ‘First we must question him, find out who he is and where he’s from.’ When they then learnt he was a man of consequence and on his way to Copenhagen to see the king they looked at each other wide-eyed. And when he was back in the dark storeroom they said, ‘This is a bad business. For if he’s missed and they find out from the innkeeper that he came here and didn’t leave, the hussars will come overnight and fetch us out, and there’s plenty of hemp in the fields this year, so hangmen’s nooses come cheap.’ So they told their prisoner they would let him go if he swore an oath not to betray them, threatening they would have him watched in Copenhagen. And he had to tell them on oath where he lived. He told them, ‘Next to the Green Man, on the left in the big house with green shutters.’ Then they poured him some Burgundy wine and he watched them coining their thalers until it was light.

  When the morning light shone down through the gratings, and they heard the sound of whips on the road and the cowherd blowing his horn, the traveller took leave of his night-time companions, thanked them for having him and went gaily back to the inn, quite forgetting that he had left his watch and pipe and the pistols behind in the mansion. The innkeeper said, ‘Thank God you’re back, I didn’t get a wink of sleep! How did you get on?’ But the traveller thought, an oath is an oath, and you mustn’t take God’s name in vain to save your life. So he said nothing, and as the bell was ringing and the wretched malefactor was being led out everyone ran off to watch. He said nothing in Copenhagen either, and almost forgot the incident himself.

  A few weeks later, however, he received a parcel by the post, and in it were a pair of expensive new pistols inlaid with silver, a new gold watch set with diamonds, a Turkish pipe with a gold chain and a silk tobacco-pouch embroidered with gold, and in the pouch was a note. It said, ‘We are sending you this to make up for the fright we gave you and to thank you for keeping quiet. It’s all over now, and you can tell anyone you like.’ So the traveller told the man from Grenzach, and it was that same gold watch that he took out at the top of the hill to check that the clock at Hertingen was striking noon on time, and later on in the Stork in Basel a French general offered him seventy-five new doubloons for it. But he wouldn’t part with it.

  The Hussar in Neisse

  When at the beginning of the French Revolution the Prussians were at war with the French and advancing through the province of Champagne they didn’t think that one day the tables might be turned and that in 1806 the French would be in Prussia repaying the uninvited visit. For they didn’t all behave in the enemy land as good soldiers should. A swarthy Prussian hussar, for instance, a nasty type, forced his way into a peaceful civilian’s home and took all his money and much else of value besides. In the end he even took the fine bed with its brand new covers, and he maltreated the man and his wife. An eight-year-old boy fell on his knees, imploring him to give them back his parents’ bed, if nothing else. The pitiless hussar pushed him away. The daughter ran after him, caught hold of him by the tunic, and she too was pleading for mercy. He picked her up and threw her into the well in the yard and went off with his loot. Some time later he was discharged and settled in the town of Neisse in Silesia, and thought no more of what he had done, much water had flowed under the bridge since then.

  But do you know what happened in 1806? The French entered Neisse; and one evening a young sergeant was quartered on a good woman who treated him well. The sergeant too was a decent fellow and behaved well and seemed to be happy. The next morning he didn’t come down for breakfast. The woman thought he must be still asleep and kept his coffee warm. But when he still didn’t appear she went up to his room, opened the door quietly and peeped in to see if anything was wrong.
<
br />   The young man was awake, sitting up in bed, wringing his hands and sighing as if something terrible had happened or he was homesick or something of the sort, and he didn’t notice her. But she went quietly up to him and asked, ‘What has happened, sergeant, why are you so sad?’ He looked at her with tears in his eyes and said the covers on this bed in which he had slept that night had once, eighteen years before, belonged to his parents in Champagne, they had lost everything in the looting and so were reduced to poverty, and now it had all come back to his mind and filled his heart with grief. For he was the son of the man in Champagne and remembered the covers still, and the initials his mother had embroidered on them in red were still there. The good woman was dismayed and told him she had bought the bedding from a swarthy hussar who lived here in Neisse, it was none of her doing. Now the Frenchman got up and had her take him to the hussar’s house, and he recognized him.